Sawyer Squeeze Review: How I Started Drinking Stream Water

As someone who has designed their life around hiking, I drink a lot of water. But I don’t particularly like carrying it.

Water is heavy, over 2 pounds per liter, and its weight adds up quickly. I used to carry a day’s worth on my hikes — sometimes in a bladder, sometimes in bottles, but it was heavy all the same. I consider myself frugal, but as Wirecutter’s outdoor writer, I’m also always in search of a better way, and I know that sometimes that means buying something. If a purchase would allow me to be a little more efficient or redirect my attention from faffing over my gear to smelling the roses or covering trail miles, I am likely to pay up.

Thankfully, the water-management problem has a solution that’s not just for outdoor enthusiasts. For any hike longer than an hour, I bring the Sawyer Squeeze to collect and filter water as I go. I found the filter, which Sawyer sells with a 1-liter bottle, when reading about people who were walking thousands of miles in a year across the country. Most of them were using this filter. They were on to something: Turns out, this filter — which weighs 3.5 ounces once wet — is the slightly larger and faster-filtering version of our pick for personal water filters in our guide to the best gear for your go bag.

To use the Sawyer Squeeze, you simply collect water on the trail in the bottle, screw the bottle onto the filter, and — as the name implies — squeeze the water through the filter. The plastic filter body and hollow fiber membrane are compact, lightweight, and reliable, and the 1-liter TPU bottle the filter comes with compresses as you squeeze the water out of it. I’ve drunk at least 900 liters of water from springs, streams, mountain rivers, and lakes using the filter over the past 10 years, and I’ve never been sick from it.

That’s because the Sawyer Squeeze works with a 0.1-micron membrane filter that removes bacteria and protozoa such as E. coli, Salmonella, Giardia, and Cryptosporidium. One-tenth of a micron is really small, and it’s the same as the micron rating for the filter in the Sawyer Mini, the go-bag-friendly model that we also recommend. But the membrane is not small enough to filter waterborne viruses. (Why are they so tiny?)

Thankfully, viruses aren’t much of a problem when you’re hiking in a wilderness setting, at least in the US. (If you’re hiking abroad, you may want to combine the filter with water purification like Aquamira Water Treatment or use a larger, heavier pump filter that can filter viruses.) But to avoid them, you should ensure that you’re collecting water above — never below — agricultural or industrial runoff. These bodies of water can carry viruses and heavy metals that the Sawyer Squeeze can’t filter out. The Squeeze can’t desalinate salt water, either.

For routine maintenance, the filter comes with a syringe for backflushing: You collect clean water from a tap and then push it through the filter in reverse to dislodge debris buildup, which can slow down the filter when you’re using it on the trail.

The best bottle for squeezing water through the Sawyer Squeeze filter is the Cnoc Premium 1-Liter Bottle, which Sawyer offers in a filter and bottle package. I use it exclusively. The Cnoc bottle is easy to fill with water in a stream, and it’s comfortable on my hands to squeeze the water through the filter and into my mouth or a second, more rigid water bottle that’s better for carrying in a backpack pocket.

Aside from doing regular maintenance, you need to be aware of some small flaws in the Sawyer Squeeze filter’s design, though with a little preparation, you can avoid too much inconvenience. For one thing, the O-ring can fall out, and you’ll know right away, as water sprays out. For me, the O-ring pops out when I overtighten the filter. Other people attribute it to the O-ring’s simply wearing out and deforming over time. On my first Sawyer Squeeze, I once lost the O-ring on a hike and walked out a little thirsty. Sawyer sent me a replacement O-ring and recommended that I stock up with a few extras. So until a new design solves the problem, pick up some extra gaskets and carry one with you.

The flow rate of the filter will also slow over time, but that problem isn’t unique to the Squeeze; it’s common for any membrane-type filter. It’s rated for 100,000 gallons, an untestable number in real life, but you are more likely to lose the filter before hitting that limit — or to let it freeze, which will damage it. A frozen filter is compromised and should be discarded. To guard against cold temperatures, I carry the Squeeze in a jacket pocket when I’m hiking in cold weather.

Of course, if you’re backpacking, and you’re after the lightest-weight option for staying hydrated on the trail, this isn’t the smallest filter (though at 3.5 ounces when wet, it’s still really small and light). I’ve tried the Sawyer Mini, our recommendation for a go bag, but its flow rate is too slow for me for regular use in a non-emergency scenario.

Of course, the most obvious shortcoming of the Squeeze is that it relies on the presence of a water supply when you hit the trail. But as long as I know that there will be a river, stream, or lake along the way, I know that I can use the Squeeze to filter safe drinking water for my hike. The trail is where I unburden myself of the weight of everyday life — so why should I carry extra water if it’s not necessary?

The Sawyer Squeeze can help you answer the common question: “How much water should I bring?” It’s probably less than you think.

This article was edited by Katie Okamoto and Maxine Builder.